Tag Archives: online retail platform

Richard Liu Qiangdong, the founder of the largest online retail platform in China, talked about what helped business to succeed during the annual world economic forum of 2018. To bring things to a clear perspective, Liu built the online platform from scratch to become the largest online retailer in China. In January this year, Forbes ranked him among the top wealthy Chinese business people with an estimated net worth of eleven billion dollars.

But how did Richard Liu start?

Initially, Richard Liu Qiangdong wanted to venture into politics. He even enrolled for a course in Sociology in a college in Beijing. He grew in a modest family where his parents owned a small transportation company dealing with the transportation of coal from China to the south. By the time Liu completed university; the family business was already crumbling.

While in college, Richard Liu enrolled for programming classes and even started coding as a freelancer. By his third year in college, he established his first business using his saving and money borrowed from his parents. Unfortunately, his business collapsed and left him in debt.

After graduating from college, Liu joined a Japanese health firm, where he worked for two years. He later quit his job and started another business, known as Jingdong. At first, Jingdong was a brick and mortar store, which quickly grew to twelve stores. When SARS broke out in 2004, Richard Liu was forced to close his stores and started selling his products online.

How JD.com succeeded as an online platform

When Liu established his online retail platform, the market was chaotic. The Chinese market was filled with counterfeit products, and the existing businesses did not care much about their customers. Liu Qiangdong came up with new rules that set him apart from his competitors.

Saying NO to counterfeit products

When Liu established Jingdong, he decided that his business would only deal with original and genuine products. Within a few years, his company won the trust of millions of shoppers who are out looking for genuine products. Liu also streamlined the delivery system and customer care by ensuring that products are shipped within a short time, and customer complaints are resolved whenever they arise.